Luke Williams Addresses Harry Darling’s Fitness Worries

Luke Williams has addressed concerns regarding Harry Darling’s fitness, disclosing that the centre-back was substituted during Wednesday’s victory at Derby County due to illness. Darling exited the match after an hour of Swansea’s 2-1 win at Pride Park, thereby interrupting his defensive partnership with Ben Cabango. Prior to the trip to Pride Park, Darling and Cabango had played every minute of this Championship campaign alongside each other at the core of Williams’ defence. However, the Swansea head coach has indicated that despite his early departure at Derby, Darling is expected to be available for Saturday’s home fixture against Portsmouth. “He has been really ill and to be honest the performance he put in given how unwell he has been was incredible,” Williams said. “I am really proud of him for that. He was spent [when he came off], totally spent. He gave us everything he could today. “He’ll be fine. It’s a bug and it’s on the way out, but he lost a lot of energy.” Darling was replaced by Cyrus Christie, whose foul on Tom Barkhuizen led to Derby captain Nathaniel Mendez-Laing scoring from the penalty spot, making the score 2-1. Nevertheless, Swansea secured their third away victory of the season after early goals from Zan Vipotnik and Ronald. This win served as a welcome response after difficult late defeats to Leeds United and Burnley, and elevates Swansea to 11th place in the table.